VSS FAQ

Q: What are is VSS?

A: VSS is Visual Source Safe that is the repository of project documents. When you add or update a document in VSS, new version of file is created.

It is developed by MicroSoft and installed in Windows NT. It is licensed software and we have to buy the license to install it, it is NOT FREE.

Q: What is code versioning?

A: When a file is updated, VSS does not override file, it keeps the old copy of file in databases and creates new version of the file.

All versions of the file can be retrieved from VSS at any point of time.

We can compare two versions of the same file and identify the changes between two versions.

Q: What are alternative tolls of VSS?

A:

  • SVN - SubVersion,
  • CVS –Concurrent Versioning System,
  • PVCS etc.
  • Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) for.Net developers
  • Surround SCM

Q: What is Check-in and what will happen when you do Check-in?

A: When you add or update a file in VSS, it is called Check-in. At the time of Check-in If file is not exist in the VSS then it is added if file is already exist in the VSS, a new version of file is created.

If file already exist in the VSS then first you have to Check-out then only you can Check-in the file.

Q: What is Get Latest?

A:

  1. Get Latest makes local copy of Source Code or Project Documents from VSS to Hard disk.
  2. Local copy will be in read only mode. You can ‘Get Latest’ a single document or a folder. Since it is Read-Only copy so you can NOT modify it.
  3. When you Get Latest a folder then it’s all sub-folders are also copied.
  4. Unusually Developers ‘Get Latest’ every day in the Morning so that they will get all the latest changes done by other developers.

Q: What is Check-out?

A: Check-out is the way to get writable copy of a file from VSS.

  1. When a Developer need to change source code, or Manager need to change project documents, or Tester need to change Testcases then they Check-out the file from VSS.
  2. Once a user Check-out a file it is locked by VSS.
  3. At a time only one user can Check-out the file.
  4. If file is locked then other Developers can take only read-only copy of file by ‘Get Latest’
  5. When same user Check-in the file, lock is released and other Developer can Check-out the file.

Q: What is difference between Check-out and Get Latest?

A: Check –out gets the writable copy of code whereas ‘Get-Latest’ gets only readable copy of file.

Q: Why do you compare the code before Check-in?

A: When a Developer modify code to develop new functionality or bug fixing, he puts some hard coded values, comment some code, and add debug statements. Before check-in all these unnecessary changes need to be removed. That is why before Check-in Developer compares the code and removes hard coding and debug statements.

Q: How many Developers can Check-out a file?

A: Only one, file will be locked and locked file can not be Check-out

Q: How do you access VSS

A: We start VSS client and access VSS server using login id and Password.

Q: Who access VSS or Who are users of VSS?

A:

  1. · Developer - Keep Source Code, JUnit Testcases
  2. · Manager– Keep Project Plan, Project Guidelines, Check Lists
  3. · Team Lead/Architect – keep Coding Guidelines, Coding Check List, System Architecture Document, Usecases, Design Model
  4. · Tester – Keep Functional Testcases, System Integration Testcases
  5. · DBA – Database Schema, Stored Procedure

Q: What documents are kept in VSS

A: All Project artifacts ( documents)

  1. · Project Plan
  2. · Project Guidelines
  3. · Check List
  4. · System Architecture Document
  5. · Database Schema
  6. · Usecases
  7. · Testcases
  8. · UML Diagrams (Rational Rose .mdl ) files

Q: What is code tagging?

A: After a build source are given a tag(label). This tag is applied to current version of all files. Usually after every Build we tag the source code.

Get-Latest gets the latest copy of source code whereas if we want to get source code of a any previous Build then we can Get the build code by mentioning Tab name.